1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a search supporting system, a search supporting method, and a search supporting program that support a user to search a target through the Internet and to select or determine a target.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, systems that support selection or determination of a target to be searched by a user have been used when the user searches for the target (for example, a product or the like) through a network such as the Internet and purchases the target (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-246585A).
For example, a user searches for a target by inputting the name (for example, a product name or the like) of the target or the characteristics of the target by using various search engines available on the Internet. In addition, as needed, the user searches for a store that sells the above-described target.
Then, a server device having the above-described search engine supports the user's search for the target by presenting the image of a target corresponding to the user's preference or the price thereof included in the found store to the user's terminal through the Internet or providing a related target or the like.
In addition, recently, the purchase of products from a virtual store from a virtual mall on the Internet without visiting a retail store that provides face-to-face sales for purchasing the product has increased.
As a result, even in a region in which a large-size retail store is not located nearby, it becomes possible for a user to purchase a product of choice from among a plurality of products of many types while being seated in his or her house (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-150138A).
However, in the above-described conventional examples and the like, when the user searches for the target, the user inputs text data representing the name or the like of the target or selects the target from images of targets that have been prepared in advance for a search. Accordingly, when the user has information on the image of the target only and does not know the name of the target, there is a problem that the user cannot search the target actually desired to be searched or a target that is similar to the search target.
A purpose of some aspects of the present invention is to provide a search supporting system, a search supporting method, and a search supporting program that are capable of searching for a target desired to be searched by the user by using the image data of the target, for example, even in a case where the name of the target is not known to the user.